If it was an IRS employee then why only a part of the return? My guess would be someone from an accounting or law firm he employed around that time.
I’m not sure I follow you; if this suffices, and a number of people could’ve released it, and an IRS employee could’ve released more, then – why wouldn’t an IRS employee do what gets the job done while covering his tracks?
It’s true that he didn’t break the law here (there are other places he’s broken the law but not here). But a big takeaway should be that he’s a bad enough businessman that he lost $916 million. But because he wrote off that loss, basically the next $916 million he earned was tax-free, while his creditors and investors were paid off pennies on the dollar. I’ve read some people who like him because “he’s a good businessman”, including at least one poster here, and I’d love to see what they think about this.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding something, I’m certainly not a tax expert, so please correct me if there is something I’m missing, but I just can’t see any way this can be spun in a good way by the Trump camp, though I will enjoy seeing them try.
It proves the NY Times is an extension of the Clinton Campaign.
(All right, I cheated. That’s what they are actually claimimg).
The pages were from NY, NJ and CT taxes, not federal.
You know it’s an unfathomable world when I’m defending Trump, but this whole thing bothers me a lot. It’s almost certainly an illegally obtained document, and it’s from two decades ago. The ethical thing for the Times/Clinton campaign to do would have been to refuse to print it, and alert the authorities.
I’m getting tired of criminals interfering in the campaign by releasing things that are supposed to be private, regardless of which side they’re doing it on behalf of. Trump can hang himself with the things he chooses to say and with his public record. Can we stop with the bloody hacking (electronically or otherwise) already?
ETA, and “…have not verified the authenticity of the documents…” So, basically we’re just printing rumors and innuendo now? Isn’t this exactly the sort of nonsense that got Dan Rather canned?
The IRS wouldn’t have Trump’s state income tax returns. And in any case they don’t save paper copies of forms from 21 years ago.
Meh. Newspapers print illegally-obtained documents all the time.
They were not sent by an IRS employee. These were parts of state returns, which are not sent to the IRS. Furthermore they were returns for three different states, so they weren’t from an employee of the revenue department at any one state.
I think it says something about the postmark being from the Trump Tower, so most likely a disgruntled Trump employee did it.
Somebody was thinking more of America than of themselves… unless it was Donald who released them.
You know what this means? He didn’t pay taxes on the money earned from the “good business” practice of betting against US homeowners during the 2008-2010 recession.
I’m about nine hundred million percent sure that whoever sent it put Trump Tower as a return address as a bit of humor. You can put any return address on an envelope that you want. The postmark just indicates what post office picked it up; in this case the postmark was from Manhattan.
It takes a special level of bad to lose that kind of money in an economy where a monkey throwing darts at a Wall Street Journal would pick a winning portfolio.
I’m not sure that Trump isn’t above pawning steaks and board games for some extra scratch.
That narrows it to what, 3 or 4 million people?
Still suspect a gruntledly-challenged Trump employee.
It narrows it down to no one, really. Anybody could travel to Manhattan and drop a letter in a mailbox.
Balancing losses against future payments of income tax is standard procedure, it’s what makes the tax system work so well. I’m not seeing the big deal here, other than that Trump sucks as a businessman, which we knew already. As for the billion dollar loss that will have been audited up the kazoo by the IRS already so I’m sure there’s no question of malfeasance on Trump’s part. It’s pretty much a non-story although it’s a huge gift to Clinton for the spin that can be put on it.
I don’t think anyone’s accusing DT of malfeasance. Just being really shitty at managing his businesses.
1995 was when he publicly floated the Trump Hotel and Resort Company, the only public company he has been President of. It’s probably his lowest net worth, there is estimates that he may have been worth -$900 million at the time. This 2005 article claims that he had to twice go begging for money from his family to avoid complete ruin, getting loans of $10 and $20 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/business/yourmoney/whats-he-really-worth.html?_r=0
Seems clear to me that this year was chosen specifically as it’s probably the largest loss he claimed in a single year.
Seems DJT, Marla, and the accountant would have had legitimate access to those documents. I don’t think anyone in government would have had access to all three.
I would speculate (with absolutely no proof) that DJT or Marla might have provided such documents to an attorney at some point in relation to any of various legal proceedings.
So it seems that the leak must have come directly from DJT in some weird scheme, from Marla, or more likely (IMHO) from someone from the accounting or legal side without authorization to release the documents.
Trump has now beat Clinton in being the first candidate this year to be hit by an October surprise :D.